AALL Spectrum December 2010 Issue

The December 2010 issue of AALL Spectrum, the monthly publication of the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL), is available online.

Among the articles that atrtacted my attention are:

• Making Your Wallflowers Blossom - How to implement the best social media strategy for your library by Ryan Harrington: "Considering the number of law libraries currently engaged in social media, many of us would agree that there is a benefit to be gained from our online presence. Yet when we polled the librarians here at the Yale Law School for priorities on resource allocation, we discovered that our efforts in social media received the lowest priority. This led to an interesting dilemma: Are we librarians spending too much time on social media without getting enough benefits? Or do we not receive enough benefits because we don’t spend enough time? There was no way to resolve this dilemma until we decided what we hoped to accomplish through our online presence and until we implemented a system that would enable us to measure the benefits adequately."
• The Tao of the Circulation Desk - Towards a simple philosophy of patron assistance by Kevin Baggett: "It had occurred to me during the two years I’ve served as a circulation librarian that the circulation desk is an important piece as the public services “face” of the library, but conveying this message to my undergraduate student workers hasn’t always been the easiest of tasks. We seem to be missing a guiding philosophy of servicing patrons at the circulation desk—at least here in my library—and I want to correct this deficiency. Of course I can (and have) beat my student workers over the head about the importance of good customer service during many training sessions, but that only goes so far. Dry terms like 'public relations,' 'shareholders,' and 'ambassadorship' make undergraduates’ eyes roll into the back of their heads. Yes, the need for written rules and procedures at the circulation desk is evident, but that doesn’t give my charges a guiding principle of patron service. I want to create a simple, perhaps slightly humorous, philosophy that they can understand and apply when they are working at the desk. So, I’ve turned to the simplest philosophy I could think of — Taoism."
• Member to Member: If you could ask for a "holiday gift" for your library, what would it be?